Council to consider $3.2 million Taunton High stadium appropriation

Sunday

Mar 9, 2014 at 3:49 PMMar 9, 2014 at 7:45 PM

Charles Winokoor Taunton Gazette Staff Reporter @cwinokoor

TAUNTON — It came in just under the wire, but thanks to an agenda addendum, the City Council will have a chance to entertain a first reading of an order to spend an additional $3.2 million on Taunton High School.

The order calls for $500,000 to be drawn from “available funds.” The balance of $2.7 million would be borrowed, according to the order submitted and signed by City Clerk Rose Marie Blackwell.

The purpose of the $3.2 million appropriation is to pay for “remodeling, reconstructing and making extraordinary repairs” to the school’s athletic stadium.

“We’ve anticipated this for a number of years. Now it’s time to close out the entire project,” said Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr.

Renovating Taunton High and building a newer Parker Middle School next door was made possible in 2007, when voters approved a debt exclusion — whereby the state would pay 83 percent and the city 17 percent of the $104 million needed to undertake the ambitious project.

But within two years, unexpected expenses known as change orders led the city to raise the construction spending price to just under $112 million — the state’s threshold for allowing the city to shoulder just 17 percent of the financial burden.

And even though the city ended up shelling out an additional $1.36 million, there still was a budgetary shortfall to replace the stadium’s old bleachers, the bathrooms under the bleachers and the press box.

School Superintendent Julie Hackett said the $500,000 will come from her department’s “school choice” revolving fund — which collects money paid by other districts as compensation for allowing students from those municipalities to attend Taunton High.

Hoye said the city’s building department previously issued a temporary occupancy permit, which already has been extended.

He said it’s time for the city to install bleachers and bathrooms that comply with Americans with Disabilities Act so that a permanent occupancy permit can be granted.

He also stressed it eventually will cost the city additional money if it delays committing itself to fixing the problem.

Hackett said she expects the new bleachers to be installed next summer.

Hoye said he’ll soon launch a fundraising campaign to help offset the cost of paying off the $2.7 million loan.

Councilor Gerald Croteau was taken aback when informed of the $3.2 million price tag.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of that figure,” he said.

Croteau said he’s been meeting with business people and civic leaders about fixing the shortfall, but was under the impression it would cost no more than $2 million.

Hoye said he received the recent, definitive figures about two weeks ago.

Hackett said the new bleachers will be slightly reduced in terms of seating capacity, but should be adequate to accommodate home and visiting team fans. She also said the bathrooms, in order to be ADA-compliant, will be reduced in capacity by about half.

The stadium isn’t the only thing that wasn’t covered by the initial $112 million: Private donors have given money so that seats in the school’s auditorium are either repaired or replaced.

Councilor David Pottier said he didn’t vote for the debt exclusion in 2007 and never understood why it should cost $80 million to repair a high school that was only 30 years old.

“The crime is we agreed on the $104 million and that it (stadium upgrades) was going to be part of it,” Pottier said, adding that residents would be “justified thinking they’re going to pay for it twice.”

According to online information posted on the website of governor’s office, property owners in Taunton can calculate how much they are paying for the THS debt exclusion project by multiplying their annual tax bill by a factor of 0.017566.

Pottier said the $2.7 million the city will likely bond conceivably could have gone toward more important things, such as hiring new firefighters.

Hoye said he agrees with Pottier that there were too many problems with the debt-exclusion project.

“It was poorly managed; there were too many change orders. But unfortunately we can’t go back in time,” he said.

Hoye declined to single out any particular party that was involved in the $112 million project.

Back in July 2009, when the City Council was informed it might have to approve another $8 million, bringing the total to $112 million, it heard from Jim Devol, senior project manager for Gilbane Inc., which managed and coordinated the project and its various subcontractors.

Devol said change orders, up to that point, only accounted for a 2-percent increase, or slightly more than $2 million.

“I think the job’s going okay; it’s going fine,” he said.

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